The quest for love, achievement and identity is universal, but what role does race play in the story of our lives? On the eve of Obama’s first election, four Harvard intellectuals find themselves entangled in a complex web of social and sexual politics in this provocative new play by Lydia R. Diamond.

"'Smart People' is exactly what you would expect it to be: smart, sexy and provocative...All four actors are brilliant, edgy and captivating in their respective roles...Yes, we’ve seen it done before: an intersection of characters whose lives all meet because of one single, focal point. However, it’s never been done before with such clever and amusing dialogue and a plot that is intelligently woven together."
Full Review

"'Smart People' is a sharp-edged satire, and Ms. Diamond’s ear for the foibles of her subjects is so precisely tuned as to make 'Clybourne Park' and 'Disgraced' look downright tone-deaf...But as funny as 'Smart People' is, it’s also quite deeply felt...The play’s the thing, and it’s a gem. Not only is 'Smart People' soundly constructed, but it’s intelligent and provocative enough to put you in mind of Tom Stoppard."
Full Review

"There are racial and emotional land mines all around 'Smart People,' the provocative, sharply observed and shrewdly breezy new play...Directed with sly, stark sleekness, the serious comedy introduces disparate high-achievers who meet cute and cannot keep themselves from puncturing the relationships with sharp questions...Terrific acting and nuanced writing twist stereotypes into high-level thrills."
Full Review

"Director Kenny Leon and writer Lydia R. Diamond deserve every accolade for this play...Perfect pacing so that the audience never feels bored or too overwrought by the seriousness of the matters being played out in front of them...'Smart People' is not just a 'smart' play but a wise one. It is an intellectual analysis on the 'intelligent,' and whether being smart is valuable if you are not good or kind in deed."
Full Review

"New sharply satiric comedy...Diamond's crisp and clever dialogue is accented by director Kenny Leon's slick production...'Smart People' is very funny because it reflects a very sympathetic human foible; the desire to resolve our racial conflicts without messing things up every time we open our mouths."
Full Review

"A sexy, serious and very, very funny modern-day comedy of manners...At the end of the play, when the characters meet at a dinner party and lay all their race cards on the table, sparks really fly…The playwright puts this incendiary topic in a realistic context, and addresses it in a refreshingly honest manner."
Full Review

"A provocative dialectic and a lively comedy, with prickly characters that push back against one another's preconceptions…The occasional scene doesn't entirely ring true…And the play at times feels less like a developing narrative then a succession of whip-smart scenes illustrating variations on a theme...But it's hard to quibble with a play that remains so consistently intelligent, scathingly funny and even affecting in its understated way."
Full Review

"While none of the statements, jokes, and snappy comments made about race were particularly new and cutting, that is perhaps their beauty...It is largely artful, excepting some inevitable stumbles...The characters are all flawed and often unlikable, but this makes it feel all the more genuine...'Smart People' is wry and, well, smart. The end was perhaps too clean and it has its flaws, but the climax fight over dinner that brings everyone into the same room for the first time is spectacular."
Full Review

"An uneven but clever and witty satire...While the play knows where it is going, it is not always obvious to the audience. 'Smart People,' however, is a clever, perceptive look at race in the work place and how it impinges on romantic relations in our private lives. Mahershala Ali, Joshua Jackson, Anne Son and Tessa Thompson are charismatic performers worth watching for in their future stage roles."
Full Review

"I found the play somewhat unsatisfying. Diamond’s structure uses a lot of short, fragmentary scenes…The whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts…I felt that the sex scenes and the gratuitousl nudity were thrown in to grab the audience’s attention between didactic moments…The stunningly attractive cast make their characters lively…The direction by Kenny Leon seemed a bit slack. I do give the playwright credit for writing a play that is likely to provoke lively discussion."
Full Review

"I was finding the well-written 'Smart People.' directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon, to be a little trite. I don't mean to dismiss the characters' points of view or Ms. Diamond's voice; I mean that the conversations sounded like ones I'd heard before. I was eager for a fresh perspective. Toward the end of the play, I got it."
Full Review

"The strength of 'Smart People' is also its weakness: Diamond is so busy giving her characters smart, scathing things to say that she never manages to establish a central conflict...She's brilliant at argument, less so at creating drama...If you're going to enjoy 'Smart People' you'll have to look at it as a frequently stimulating symposium rather than a fully realized dramatic work. Still, under Kenny Leon's acute direction, all four cast members make strong impressions."
Full Review

"Diamond’s schematic, only sporadically effective play...concerns four characters...The playwright uses them more as glib (and sometimes funny) mouthpieces for different viewpoints than as three-dimensional characters...The complications seem contrived and the incidents leading to lovers’ quarrels artificial...The production is smooth, the actors fine, the ideas worth a listen, and, as the title declares, the characters smart. The play itself, though, barely passes."
Full Review

"The play's impersonal, almost mechanical, construction makes it difficult to care most of the time…Many of the performances don't help, either…Despite these problems, 'Smart People' is never boring, and in it Diamond finds plenty of enlightenment and entertainment in the topics she tackles…There's no shaking a sense of disappointment that she wasn't willing to cut just a bit deeper."
Full Review

"'Smart People' is a patchwork quilt of a play, a mélange of scenes about race in America without a distinctive through-pattern. Much of it is quite diverting, although it falls short of compelling...Diamond essentially presents these characters as types, outfitted with qualities and attitudes, rather than as distinctive individuals. Their conversations can be very witty, while also seeming artificial...Maybe, 'Smart People' is just the kind of play that gets you thinking rather than feeling."
Full Review

"As their lives intertwine, albeit in ways that are not always convincing, their assumptions, flirtations and arguments sit on promising fault lines of conflict. So why doesn’t the play shake us more than it does?...the production’s flaws bring out some weaknesses in the writing...Although Diamond raises resonant questions, much of her spitballing hits right on the nose. Audiences may be smarter than the play seems to believe."
Full Review

"During the overlong and talkie play 'Smart People,' I started to hear lectures and debates rather then dialogue and interactions...It’s as complicated as it sounds, and as angry and contrived as it feels...Under difference circumstances I would be very willing to accept these implausible connections, if the heart and the emotional core felt true. Sadly it doesn’t...It doesn’t matter how smart these people are, we need them to be real people as well."
Full Review

"Diamond's characters come off mostly as very talkative issue-representatives. It's not that what they represent, isn't worth thinking about and what they say isn't often sharp and funny. It's just that it all comes off as too familiar and lacking in real depth, with Diamond's facility for snappy dialogue sabotaged by plot devices that too often smack of contrivance...'Smart People' ultimately disappoints because it could have been so much smarter."
Full Review

"No overall storyline develops and very little occurs for two hours and 15 minutes. It’s hard to imagine the play appealing to an audience other than the academic types that it depicts. Leon draws shaded, believable performances from the quartet, but the play might have been more entertaining had he placed more emphasis on the humor in the script. It also may work better if cut down to 90 minutes."
Full Review

"On the evidence of this unsatisfying production, Diamond is more interested in addressing the complications of race as a kind of laboratory puzzle than in embodying characters that credibly exist beyond that issue…All of these permutations and involutions of the theme make 'Smart People' the kind of play that’s fascinating to read and think about. It is not, however, very fascinating to watch…The bigger problem is that there is very little plot.”
Full Review

"'Smart People' is saying something about race and racism — but what? Lydia R. Diamond’s most clever gambit here is to frame her argument as a rom-com in which sexual and academic power moves — two of the characters teach at Harvard — play against pseudo-edgy speechifying...How ironic that a show about race would be skin-deep."
Full Review

"We hear some very smart people saying some very smart things. We see their lips moving, but we don’t hear a word they are saying. Diamond has given these fine actors little to work with in terms of depth. Kenny Leon’s direction does nothing to elevate or simplify the evening. These characters remain a conglomeration of facts and figures...Who these people are, however, and why we should care is never discovered."
Full Review

"Topicality is the strongest asset Lydia R. Diamond’s play 'Smart People,' under Kenny Leon’s brisk direction, has going for it. Yes, Diamond’s work has some trenchant observations about race in America, But it’s much less smart, and far more muddled, than the author probably intended."
Full Review

" 'Confrontational People' would be a more apt title…Arguments are fine. Many fine plays have been built around them, but the quick repetition of them over the course of two and a half hours becomes numbing. In the first act, there are several vignettes, each of which carries the same weight under Kenny Leon‘s direction…Diamond means to say big things...Big ideas have a way of getting lost when people bicker."
Full Review

"The topics Diamond addresses in 'Smart People'—race, gender, social and sexual politics—are all significant and relevant. Yet the play fails to completely engage the audience...The characters are so self-involved and self-important that they become blatantly unlikable…Cutting the work down to a more focused, easier-to-digest 90 minutes may have helped the medicine go down more easily. At end of play, Brian concludes, “Life sucks.” Do we really need Lydia R. Diamond to tell us that?"
Full Review

See it if
you enjoy mostly conversation-based theatre of ideas on intersectionality; open-ended plot; thoughtful writing & committed performances

Don't see it if
you are offended by some explicit content (e.g. male nudity); you need closure and don't like shows that make you think

Also
lydia diamond applies her sharp wit, humor, and insight (much enjoyed in STICK FLY, one of my all-time broadway favorites) to an examination of the question: is it possible to talk about race in america without being obstructed by prejudice and fear - others' and our own? the play tackles a number of topics around this question in challenging, intelligent, and often funny ways, deliberately leaving them open-ended and subject to further thought and discussion by the audience.

it is not an easy play, for all its entertaining value; but it's very much worth your time, for both the playwright's challenge to the viewers with this work, and the wonderful performances by the whole cast showing character struggles and growth - never easy, always recognizable, & deeply meaningful. this play is a rare, if somewhat undeveloped, cultural find; if you can catch a production, i warmly recommend checking it out.... Read moreRead less